Social media has taught us the importance of a great customer experience. From slow websites to poor customer service, you can expect that annoyed, frustrated, or angry customers will post online about their interactions with your brand. They’ll share stories of customer support representatives that weren’t helpful, photos of products that don’t work as expected, and the impression your brand left.
According to research from the White House Office of Consumer Affairs, stories about negative interactions that your brand has with a customer will spread twice as far as stories about positive interactions. It takes twelve positive experiences to make up for every negative customer experience.
Recommendations from friends and family are the most credible form of advertisement because people value word-of-mouth endorsements about brands. If you want to grow your business, you have to focus on improving the buyer’s experience with your brand. To help you create a great customer experience strategy, we’re highlighting a few proven methods for improving customer experience.
Table of Contents
6 Proven Methods to Improve Your Customer Experience Strategy
1. Get to Know Your Customers
To provide a good customer experience, you have to know who your customers are and what they want. Utilize analytics to get data on your customer’s demographics, their behavior, and their interests to create buyer personas. Getting to know your customers better will help you tailor the customer experience to meet their expectations and improve your customer service. If you haven’t reviewed your buyer persona document in a while take some time to make sure it is still accurate.
2. Personalize the Customer Experience
According to Segment’s 2017 State of Personalization Report, customers are expecting a personalized shopping experience and when a business doesn’t provide one, they risk losing a loyal customer. They expect brands to utilize technology to tailor their brand experience specific to their online behavior. They want to see content that is relevant to them, ads that reflect the things they’re shopping for, and customized promotions and coupons.
3. Reward Customer Loyalty
Having a great customer experience is key to earning customer loyalty. But, once they’re loyal, customers want to continue to receive rewards for purchases from your brand rather than a competitor. Customer loyalty programs that allow customers to earn points and rewards for shopping are great tools for rewarding repeat customers. You can also reward customer loyalty by sending discounts, offering samples of new products, and personalizing the messages you send in emails.
4. Turn Your Employees into Advocates for Your Customers
Your customer service representatives should not be the only employees that focus on making your customers happy. If you want to create a great customer experience, every person that is a part of the sales process needs to work to put the customers first. Creating a customer-centric culture can help you foster a company where every employee advocates for a better customer experience.
5. Create Helpful Content for Your Customers
Your customers are asking questions about your brand at every stage of their buyer’s journey. By taking the time to research the top questions your ideal customers are searching for and answering them with clear and helpful videos, infographics, and blog articles you will establish yourself as an industry expert. The more questions you answer for your customers the more likely they are to continue to look to you as new questions or problems arise.
Related article: How Does Content Marketing Work?
6. Reply to Customers on Social Media
Your customers are talking about you on social media. Whether they’re tagging your brand or not, they’re sharing their positive and negative experiences with your brand. Show them that you’re paying attention to their comments, compliments, or concerns by posting thoughtful responses. Social media has become the customer’s preferred channel to communicate with brands and it’s become a huge part of the buyer’s journey. If you want to deliver great customer service, you must incorporate social media into your customer experience strategy.
Implementing a great customer experience strategy takes time but when done well you can increase your opportunities to extend your relationships with your customers beyond their initial purchase and turn customers into loyal fans.
Do you need help aligning your customer experiences with your marketing strategy? Contact us to learn how SMA Marketing can partner with you to create a well-rounded inbound marketing strategy.
